1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to computer storage device management and more particularly to a method and system for creating and managing a plurality of storage devices in a computer network.
2. Related Art
Computer networks are widespread and vitally important in many diverse applications including business, universities and government. In general, a computer network is two or more computers (or associated devices) that are connected by communication facilities. A computer network generally includes a server, which is a computer that provides shared resources to users of the network, and a client, which is a computer that accesses the shared network resources provided by the server using the communication facilities. For example, the Internet (via the World Wide Web (WWW)) is a wide-area network (WAN) environment that enables remote clients to request and receive data located on a server.
It is common to have many different types of clients in a computer network due to differing ages and capabilities of client computers and the diversity of user needs. By way of example, a heterogeneous computer network may include client computers having different hard drive sizes, various amounts of processing power, different operating systems and applications installed. Typically, an individual server is specifically configured to meet the needs of similar client computers, so that in a heterogeneous computer network there may be several such servers.
One problem with this type of heterogeneous computer network is that the difference between client computers and corresponding servers can greatly increase the workload of an administrator of the network. More specifically, in order to update the computer network with, for example, a new version of an application each individual server and often each client computer must be updated. This can be a tedious and time-consuming endeavor for the network administrator. Accordingly, what is needed is a method and a system for managing storage devices in a computer network that simplifies the updating of the network such that each server and client computer does not need be updated individually.